The Chronicles of Narnia.mobi

PC Magazine reports that a Scottish couple was ordered to hand over the narnia.mobi domain name to the estate of C.S. Lewis, after an intellectual property agency ruled that the couple acted in bad faith when purchasing the address.

Richard Saville-Smith purchased narnia.mobi in September 2006. But here’s what actually happened: Before opening up the .mobi domain to average Web users, the article reports, ICANN imposed a sunset period to give trademark holders an opportunity to buy .mobi domains that related to their products. “That sunset period expired on September 22, 2006; Saville-Smith purchased the narnia.mobi domain on September 26, 2006.”

It turns out Saville-Smith also purchased middleearth.mobi, tardis.mobi, and all sorts of other domains, so this wasn’t a one-time thing. Then, after being served with the C.S. Lewis estate lawsuit, he bought freenarnia.mobi—which “basically obliterates Saville-Smith’s claims of good faith when he purchased the original Narnia domain.” Looks like cybersquatting is alive and well on mobile devices, too.

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